Thankfulness

Here is one of the greatest reasons I am thankful! I am happily married to Dan - will be 23 years on January 4th of 2009. I have SIX healthy and beautiful children and I can't imagine life without even one of them. Courtney will be 19 in December, Bethany is 16 1/2, Andrew is 12, Rebecca will be 8 next week, Caleb and Joshua are 5 1/2.

God is faithful - here is another huge reason I am thankful - Dan has been unemployed a full 12 weeks, as of today, and we are still "making it". Due to some advanced planning years ago we saved up our own unemployment and today we are stretching every dollar of it that we have to keep us going until God leads Dan to a new job. We have been blessed by a number of known and unknown people over the course of the last 12 weeks - being given groceries, money and gift cards. These gifts have helped us stretch our dollars even further and have taught us much about humility. We've also had people pay our meals at restaurants just so we could go out with them - such friends! I look at the gas prices and all I can say is "Thank you God" - we have cut out a lot of expenses but food, gas and bills one just can't get around so I have joy every time I see gas at $1.79! Believe it or not, we have been looking to refinance our home - calling the bank almost every day - since the very first day Dan was out of work. It took nearly a full 12 weeks for the mortgage interest rates to drop below the level they were at that first day - making it feasible for us to refinance - saving us hundreds monthly. This will again stretch the dollars we've saved and still allow us to pay more on the mortgage when Dan is re-employed.

We have our family, our home, our vehicles, our health, and FAMILY AND FRIENDS who love us and care about us - we have much to grateful for! Vivian